Toward a New Politics of Food

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/toward_a_new_politics_of_food_20110715/?ln

The easiest way to explain Gallup’s discovery that millions of Americans are eating fewer fruits and vegetables than they ate last year is to simply crack a snarky joke about Whole Foods really being “Whole Paycheck.” Rooted in the old limousine liberal iconography, the quip conjures the notion that only Birkenstock-wearing trust-funders can afford to eat right in tough times.

It seems a tidy explanation for a disturbing trend, implying that healthy food is inherently more expensive, and thus can only be for wealthy Endive Elitists when the economy falters. But if the talking point’s carefully crafted mix of faux populism and oversimplification seems a bit facile—if the glib explanation seems almost too perfectly sculpted for your local right-wing radio blowhard—that’s because it dishonestly omits the most important part of the story. The part about how healthy food could easily be more affordable for everyone right now, if not for those ultimate elitists: agribusiness CEOs, their lobbyists and the politicians they own.

As with most issues in this new Gilded Age, the tale of the American diet is a story of the worst form of corporatism—the kind whereby the government uses public monies to protect private profit.

In this chapter of that larger tragicomedy, lawmakers whose campaigns are underwritten by agribusinesses have used billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize those agribusinesses’ specific commodities (corn, soybeans, wheat, etc.) that are the key ingredients of unhealthy food. Not surprisingly, the subsidies have manufactured a price inequality that helps junk food undersell nutritious-but-unsubsidized foodstuffs like fruits and vegetables. The end result is that recession-battered consumers are increasingly forced by economic circumstance to “choose” the lower-priced junk food that their taxes support.

More at the link --

[murielm99]

1. We have to learn new ways to afford healthy food.

Community gardens and backyard gardens can work, even in urban or poor areas.

People can go to areas where they can pick their own fruit and get it for a low price.

Farmers markets offer fruit and veggies in season. In my experience, they are not expensive, and can be made a part of one's food budget.

It takes time to avoid the unhealthy processed stuff. It is not always the least expensive.

[grasswire]

2. if I look through my local supermarket tabloid ad....

....I see very very few things that are good for me and are on the sale prices for the week.

And if I look through the coupon ads that come in the Sunday paper, the selection is ever worse. Dozens of products that are easy to prepare and loaded with fat, salt, and preservatives.

[Joe the Revelator]

3. Read the omnivores delimma if you have not already.

It'll change your life.

[dkf]

4. That wouldn't make better food cheaper, it would make junk food more expensive.

But your point is taken.